OUTLOOK Highlights of US economic indicators to be released this week
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WASHINGTON (Thomson Financial) - Here are the highlights of US economic indicators to be released this week. Thomson's IFR Markets provided the median forecasts.
MONDAY, JUNE 4
April factory orders forecast at +0.8 pct and +0.9 pct ex-transport should add another piece of evidence for a second quarter pickup in the economy. Those are down from the unexpectedly large numbers in March, but along with the ISM manufacturing index jump out last week, BMO Capital Markets economist Sal Guatieri says, "This will go some ways to alleviating the Fed's concern that business investment might be flagging."
TUESDAY, JUNE 5
Still more steady growth in the services sector is the outlook for the May ISM Non-manufacturing index. It was 56 in April and economists are looking for another 56 reading.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6
Revised first quarter productivity and labour costs won't likely alleviate the Fed's concern about "resource utilization," their code for labour market inflation pressure. With the downward Q1 GDP revision comes a downward revision to productivity. The consensus is for a cut to +1.0 pct from the initial report of +1.7 pct.
For unit labour costs, the consensus is +1.4 pct, more than double the first estimate of +0.6 pct.
Economists at Global Insight say the new numbers "will do little" to answer the Fed's monetary policy questions: "how much of the slowdown is cyclical, how much is related to our inability to measure employment in the construction sector and how much is related to a slowdown in the rate of technological change?"
THURSDAY, JUNE 7
Weather and seasonal adjustment problems have been playing havoc with the weekly jobless claims report. This week, economists are looking for 310,000 initial claims, the same as the week before, suggesting the US labour market is at least steady.
There is also no change forecast for April wholesale inventory growth, another +0.3 pct as in March.
FRIDAY, JUNE 8
April's US trade deficit may be marginally lower. The forecast is -63.4 bln usd, half a billion less than March. "The ballooning trade deficit is a mere function of energy product imports," says IFR Markets economist Jeoff Hall. Higher prices will push that part of the import bill up but other imports seem to have been steady or falling. On the export side of the balance however, Daiwa Securities Mike Moran says "firm growth in foreign economies and a competitive currency should lead to moderate growth."
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